People v. Parris

• Decision Date: 29 March 1994
• Citation: 83 N.Y.2d 342,610 N.Y.S.2d 464,632 N.E.2d 870
• Parties: , 632 N.E.2d 870 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Yuseff PARRIS, Appellant.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 464

610 N.Y.S.2d 464

83 N.Y.2d 342, 632 N.E.2d 870

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Yuseff PARRIS, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

March 29, 1994.

Abigail Everett and Philip L. Weinstein, New York City, for appellant.

Richard A. Brown, Dist. Atty. of Queens County, Kew Gardens (Steven J. Chananie and John M. Castellano, of counsel), for respondent.

OPINION OF THE COURT

LEVINE, Judge.

The principal issue on this appeal is whether, at the suppression hearing, the People sufficiently established probable cause for defendant's warrantless arrest. The proof at the suppression hearing was as follows. The police received a report of a 911 call regarding a burglary in progress at 64-04 Wetherole Street, Queens County, from a next-door neighbor. Uniformed Officers Small and Lopez, on motor patrol, were dispatched to the scene. Lopez and Small were the only witnesses to testify at the suppression hearing. When they arrived at 64-04 Wetherole Street, they met another police unit already on the scene in response to a radio communication. One of the members of the other unit, an Officer Ianelle, informed Small and Lopez that the next-door neighbor, characterized by Ianelle as an "eyewitness", gave him a detailed description of the perpetrator who had fled on a bicycle before the police arrived. Ianelle repeated the suspect's description to Officers Small and Lopez.

Officers Small and Lopez began a canvass of the immediate area by driving to a thoroughfare two or three blocks away, and shortly thereafter spotted defendant, who fit the description they had been given. When they approached defendant with guns drawn, he fled on his bicycle. The police pursued him by car until he abandoned the bicycle, after which the chase continued on foot. During his flight, defendant abandoned a loaded revolver recovered later by the police. Defendant was eventually apprehended by the officers and found to have in his possession various stolen articles from the burglarized premises. The next-door neighbor was brought to the scene of defendant's arrest and identified him as the burglar. Defendant made certain incriminating admissions to Officers Small and Lopez.

After indictment, defendant moved to suppress the stolen property and gun the police recovered, his statement and the showup identification at the scene of his arrest, on the ground, inter alia, that the police lacked probable cause for the arrest. Supreme Court denied the motion in its entirety. Defendant then pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of attempted burglary in the first degree. On appeal to the Appellate Division, defendant's principal argument was that probable cause was not established at the suppression hearing because of the People's failure to produce as a witness Officer Ianelle, whose information was relied upon by Officers Small and Lopez in arresting defendant. The Appellate Division upheld Supreme Court's denial of the motion to suppress (190 A.D.2d 872, 593 N.Y.S.2d 865). In doing so, the Court relied upon our decision in People v. Petralia, 62 N.Y.2d 47, 476 N.Y.S.2d 56, 464 N.E.2d 424, cert. denied 469 U.S. 852, 105 S.Ct. 174, 83 L.Ed.2d 109. A Judge of this Court granted defendant leave to appeal, and we now reverse.

Defendant's primary argument for reversal is that where (as here) the arresting officers had no knowledge of facts establishing probable cause but merely had a description of the perpetrator communicated to them (as the receiving officers) by another police officer of the same or another law enforcement agency (the sending officer), probable cause cannot be demonstrated at the suppression hearing consistent with the requirements of the Aguilar- Spinelli test (see, Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637; Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723), without the testimony of the sending officer.

Defendant concedes that the foregoing position appears to be inconsistent with People v. Petralia (supra), the case relied upon by the Appellate Division. In Petralia, this Court sustained the denial of a suppression motion although the only witness at the hearing was the receiving officer who made the arrest without any personal knowledge of the facts establishing probable cause. The basis of the arrest was a radio communication to the arresting officer from an undercover officer that the undercover had just purchased heroin from a specifically described suspect who drove off after the sale in a particularly described vehicle. We held in Petralia that the arresting officer's testimony to that effect was sufficient. Defendant would limit Petralia to undercover investigations where secrecy of the sending officer's identity is a concern, or to cases where the arresting officer is relying on the personal observations of a fellow officer in a common investigation.

Our decision in People v. Petralia should not be read in the limited manner defendant suggests, but proceeds from well-established principles of search and seizure law. First, when the subject of the suppression hearing is evidence which was the product of a warrantless arrest or seizure, the suppression court's probable cause analysis is essentially "the same as that used by a Magistrate in passing on an application for an arrest or search warrant" (People v. Dodt, 61 N.Y.2d 408, 415, 474 N.Y.S.2d 441, 462 N.E.2d 1159 [citations omitted]; see also, People v. Petralia, 62 N.Y.2d, at 52, 476 N.Y.S.2d 56, 464 N.E.2d 424, supra). Therefore, rulings on the sufficiency of hearsay information to satisfy the requirements of the Aguilar- Spinelli test in warrant cases apply for determining whether hearsay information possessed by the police is sufficient to establish probable cause for a warrantless arrest (see, Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 270, 80 S.Ct. 725, 735-36, 4 L.Ed.2d 697).

It also is axiomatic that, at a suppression hearing reviewing the validity of a warrantless arrest, the People are not obligated to produce any particular witness, provided they sustain their burden of coming forward with evidence showing that there was probable cause for the arrest (see, People v. Petralia, 62 N.Y.2d, at 52, 476 N.Y.S.2d 56, 464 N.E.2d 424, supra). Indeed, there is no obligation on the prosecution to produce, or even disclose, the name of the third party whose information to the police provided probable cause for the arrest, so long as the requirements of the Aguilar- Spinelli test are met (see, McCray v. Illinois, 386 U.S. 300, 311, 87 S.Ct. 1056, 1062, 18 L.Ed.2d 62; United States v. Ventresca, 380 U.S. 102, 108, 85 S.Ct. 741, 745-46, 13 L.Ed.2d 684; 4 LaFave, Search and Seizure § 11.2[d], at 245 [2d ed]. Case law also clearly establishes that probable cause can be established at the suppression hearing (or before the Magistrate on a warrant application) by hearsay information (see, Draper v. United States, 358 U.S. 307, 311-312, 79 S.Ct. 329, 331-33, 3 L.Ed.2d 327; see also, United States v. Ventresca, supra).

Thus, contrary to defendant's argument here, People v. Petralia (supra) does not merely represent an undercover officer exception for dispensing with the sending officer's testimony at a suppression hearing. Rather, Petralia is a straightforward application of the principle that hearsay information, if compatible with the requirements of Aguilar- Spinelli, may establish probable cause, either to sustain a warrantless arrest or to support the issuance of a search or arrest warrant. In Petralia, the hearsay information satisfied both prongs of the Aguilar- Spinelli standard, i.e., the informant's reliability and basis of knowledge (see, People v. Bigelow, 66 N.Y.2d 417, 423, 497 N.Y.S.2d 630, 488 N.E.2d 451). The informant in Petralia, who was both the sending officer and the undercover officer, had a basis of knowledge, since the information came from a drug purchase in which he personally participated. Moreover, as a police officer he was deemed to be a reliable informant (People v. Petralia, 62 N.Y.2d, at 52, 476 N.Y.S.2d 56, 464 N.E.2d 424, supra; see also, United States v. Ventresca, 380 U.S., at 111, 85 S.Ct. at 747, supra; 2 LaFave, Search and Seizure § 3.5[a], at 2-4 [2d ed].

Nor can People v. Petralia be limited as authorizing only a single level of hearsay information supplied by a fellow officer, defendant's alternative suggestion. "Even hearsay-upon-hearsay may be utilized to show probable cause" (1 LaFave, Search and Seizure § 3.2[d], at 580 [2d ed]. Indeed, the Supreme Court in Spinelli v. United States (supra) recognized that the police agency's hearsay information may validly be derived by its informant from sources other than firsthand observations, including the words of third persons. Thus, Justice Harlan, writing for the Spinelli majority, explained the deficiency in the warrant application regarding the FBI informant's basis of knowledge in that case as follows: "We are not told how the FBI's source received his information--it is not alleged that the informant personally observed Spinelli at work or that he ever placed a bet with him. Moreover, if the informant came by the information indirectly, he did not explain why his sources were reliable" (Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 416, 89 S.Ct. 584, 589, 21 L.Ed.2d 637, supra [emphasis supplied]. And, Justice White, in concurring, expressly acknowledged that a police confidential informant's source may also be hearsay information and yet satisfy the Aguilar- Spinelli test:

"If the affidavit rests on hearsay--an informant's report--what is necessary under Aguilar is one of two things: the informant must declare either (1) that he has himself seen or perceived the fact or facts asserted; or (2) that his information is hearsay, but there is good reason for believing it" (id., at 425, 89 S.Ct. at 593 [emphasis supplied].

Relying on the foregoing pronouncements by the Supreme Court, numerous courts in various...